Hommel Mangas
Sometimes I love the month of October with its change of season — the leaves falling with hues of orange, yellow and red. But sometimes it’s filled with grief. Last year we were in the last few weeks of saying goodbye to our mother, Betty.
2024 has ushered in the passing of my fun-loving Uncle Mike Hommel, who passed away Sept. 5, and my ever-smiling Uncle Floyd Watson, affectionately known as the “Floyd the Barber” and the “Mayor of Trafalgar,” who passed Monday morning , Oct. 7.
I was reading the first lines of Maya Angelou’s poem “When Great Trees Fall”:
“When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.”
When my brother and later my Aunt Janet called to deliver the sad news about Floyd, I felt compelled to dig out a column I had written about 12 years ago on Nov. 3, 2012:
“Everything I Need to Know — I learned in a tomato field.
About a month ago, I was at my Aunt Sandy (Hommel) and Uncle Floyd Watson’s house celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with a whole lot of well-wishers. It was a perfect day for a big outdoor party for an awesome couple. As I stood near the bonfire, I looked over and saw rows of green, lush tomato plants with an enormous amount of perfect red tomatoes. Even after the severe drought we had, their tomato garden had persevered and was producing beautiful fruit. Of course, one of Uncle Floyd’s (yes, the Trafalgar barber) tricks is to cover them at night with a tarp so the early fall frost doesn’t take them early.
I suppose tomatoes have actually staked up the Hommel family.
My grandfather Ralph, the youngest of 11 children brought a farm in Franklin, Indiana in 1927. He paid the loan off three years later with one summer’s bumper tomato crop …
From tomatoes I learned about family.
From tomatoes I learned about love.
From tomatoes I learned forgiveness.
From tomatoes I learned perseverance.
As I finish this column listening to wind gust of nearly 50 mph, the superstorm has flooded New York’s subway system and left millions without electricity. West Virginia is getting pelted with 26 inches of snow. There is damage and destruction everywhere.
Yet, I keep thinking of Aunt Sandy and Uncle Floyd’s sturdy and lush tomato plants. They may now have been blown around and done producing for the year. But there is always next year. We, like tomato plants, are of persevering sturdy stock.”
I also wrote about visiting Uncle Floyd’s Barbershop on March 10, 2007 on the occasion that his grandson, Indian Creek Diver Casey Johnson, (then a sophomore) was diving in the State Championship.
“Johnson County DNA produces State Diver
Tuesday I was hanging out at Floyd’s Barbershop. What? You didn’t know that Johnson County has their very own Floyd the Barber, just like in Andy Griffith’s Mayberry? You can find it tucked off 135 on Pearl Street in Trafalgar, about two miles south of 44 on 135, past The Outpost.
Floyd’s Barbershop is a little look at Americana. You can buy a can of soda for 50¢ or a $6 hat that reads: Floyd’s Barbershop; Trafalgar, Indiana. On the wall of the shop a sign reads: Hunters, fishermen and other liars gather here.
As I watched the red, white and blue barbershop light twirl outside, I listened to the conversations twirl around the room. Customer after customer in the one-chair barbershop talked about the new Trafalgar Library, the new Franklin High School building and the local high school sports teams.
I asked Floyd “the barber” Watson about his grandson Casey Johnson. Casey, an Indian Creek High School sophomore, represented Johnson County well by coming in fifth in the State Diving Competition. He was originally seeded 25th of 32 divers.
With his slow drawl, Floyd humbly said, ‘Well, you never know how a child is going to turn out — which side of the family they’ll inherit, but after this weekend, it’s pretty downright obvious — he’s taken after me.’
So I asked the obvious question: ‘Did you do any diving Floyd?’
‘Sure, I’m good diver — I’ve dove in the crick a few times.’ That statement brought a smile from his youngest customer of the morning — five year-old Luke Buckner.
Buckner, a Trafalgar resident, agreed that Floyd probably taught Casey everything he knows about diving. (It should be noted that young Buckner answered while his hair was being cut and he had not yet received his ‘you-sat-still-for–your-haircut lollipop.) …”
Maya Angelou’s poem ends with:
“And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”
Janet Hommel Mangas grew up on the east side of Greenwood. The Center Grove area resident and her husband are the parents of three daughters. Send comments to [email protected].
